Teacher pleads for forgiveness for sex with student

A US high school teacher who had sex with a 14-year-old student has taken an unusual step by recording an apology video before handing herself in to serve a six-month jail term.

Alabama teacher Alicia Gray, 28, was convicted on Friday after she confessed to having sex with the student half her age before handing herself over to police in the afternoon to begin her prison sentence.

But in the time between her court appearance and the commencement of her sentence, the former math teacher met with her pastor to record a seven-and-a-half minute mea culpa in which she asks forgiveness from those she hurt and accepts her fate and the "consequences that should befall" her.

"I realise I hurt many people and I also realise the implications of what I've done, and the possible difficulties that have been caused to people who have been hurt," Gray said in the video.

Pastor Mark Wyatt, who embraces the convicted teacher in a hug, defends to the penitent member of his flock, saying Gray has made a commitment to God and Jesus Christ.

"We decided then and there that the degree of her innocence would not be a deciding factor in how we loved her and how much we loved her," Pastor Wyatt said.

The married teacher from Mary G Montgomery High School in Semmes was arrested in February last year and charged with second-degree sexual abuse, second-degree sodomy, and being a school employee who has had sexual contact with a student younger than 19.